{"id":186,"date":"2013-08-21T05:31:58","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T10:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/neosmart.net\/kb\/?page_id=186"},"modified":"2016-09-16T00:34:05","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T05:34:05","slug":"installing-second","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/wiki\/easybcd\/dual-boot\/windows-xp\/installing-second\/","title":{"rendered":"Installing XP as a second OS"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most common problems encountered in configuring a dual-boot between Windows XP and Windows Vista happens when you try to install Windows XP on a computer with Windows 7\/Vista already installed. When you install Windows XP, it’ll remove the bootmgr\/BCD used by newer versions of Windows (Vista, 7, & 8) and use its own instead.<\/p>\n

Installing Windows XP on a PC already with Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8<\/h2>\n

If you follow these instructions, you should be able to add Windows XP to a system that already has a newer version of Windows installed \u2013 with minimal headache and no loss of data.<\/p>\n

Prepping the Machine for an XP Installation<\/h3>\n

The first thing to do is to get your system ready for installing Windows XP. There are a couple of things you need to do:<\/p>\n

Do you already have a free partition or a separate physical disk that you can install Windows XP to? If so, skip on to the next section.<\/p>\n

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  1. Download\u00a0the free GParted Live CD<\/a>\u00a0or use a commercial partition editor, and boot into it.<\/li>\n
  2. Use the partition manager to shrink the partition with Windows Vista\/7 to make enough room\u00a0at the end of the drive<\/em>\u00a0for Windows XP.<\/li>\n
  3. Add a new partition located\u00a0after<\/em>\u00a0the Windows Vista\/7 partition you just shrunk. Make sure it has been formatted as NTFS. It doesn’t\u00a0need to be primary, and should not be active.<\/li>\n
  4. Reboot into the Windows XP setup CD<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It’s very important to make sure that this partition was created at the end of the drive, or else you might no longer be able to boot into Windows because your partition numbers and offsets have changed.<\/p>\n

    Installing Windows XP<\/h3>\n

    If you’re installing Windows XP to a separate physical drive, do not disconnect the Windows Vista or Windows 7 drive, and do not<\/strong>\u00a0change the drive boot order in the BIOS.<\/strong> This will not help<\/em> and will make it terribly difficult to get your dual-boot working again!<\/p>\n

    You cannot install Windows XP by running the installer from within a newer version of Windows, instead, you’ll have to boot from the CD:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Make sure your BIOS is configured to boot from the CD. Some computers also let you press F8 to pick where you want to boot from \u2013 you may use that option instead.<\/li>\n
    2. Put your Windows XP CD in the drive and press a key when you see the “Press any key to enter Windows Setup…” message.<\/li>\n
    3. If you’re installing Windows XP to a SATA drive, make sure you hit F6 to load the SATA drives.<\/li>\n
    4. When you’re presented with a screen that has a list of hard drives and partitions, use the arrow keys to select the empty NTFS partition you created in the previous section, then press ‘Enter’ to continue.<\/li>\n
    5. Let Windows XP setup finish. It will reboot several times – do not interrupt it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Setting up the Dual-Boot<\/h2>\n

      Once Windows XP setup has finished, it’ll automatically boot you into the newly installed copy of Windows XP \u2013 note that you will\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0be able to boot into Vista\/7 at this point, nor will you see a boot menu option for it. This is because Windows XP has installed its own bootloader on top of the Windows Vista bootloader, and it does not recognize newer versions of Windows.<\/p>\n